Nutrition researchers have “brought much to our understanding of a healthful diet” and are continuing to improve the quality of their data, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Frank Hu told the Washington Post for a March 26, 2019 food column.
Hu, Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology and chair of the Department of Nutrition, countered concerns raised in the piece about the value of nutrition studies, including that study participants’ recall of what foods they’ve eaten may be unreliable on questionnaires or that researchers’ and their funders’ biases may influence results. Hu said that new tools to better assess diet, and the use of measurable biomarkers such as testing the level of sodium in urine, are improving data collection. And he does not believe that biases undermine the credibility of the field. They often cancel each other out, he said, adding that the most authoritative recommendations are based on widespread consensus.
Hu said that the field needs to keep improving. He said that attention should be focused on dietary patterns rather than individual nutrients, and that he believes that wider access to data and checking across multiple data sets will help identify the genuine effects of food on health.
Read the Washington Post article: Here’s what the government’s dietary guidelines should really say
Learn more
Debating the value of nutrition research (Harvard Chan School news)
Q&A: Taking Nutrition Headlines with a Grain of Salt (Harvard Public Health)